Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood Beat Beyonce and Jay-Z as Most Powerful Couple in Music

Husband and wife Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood have been named the Most Powerful Celebrity Couple in Music. They were christened as such by Billboard. So, exactly how did Brooks and Yearwood, who have been wed for just under seven years, take the crown and earn this accolade?

Well, the couples were ranked by combined U.S. album sales from 1991 through the present, based on Nielsen SoundScan data, and Brooks and Yearwood sold almost 80 million albums combined since 1991, which is incredibly impressive considering that Brooks stopped releasing recorded music in 2001. Imagine if he kept churning out records? He and Yearwood would have an insurmountable lead on the other couples on this list. They’ve released 18 studio albums collectively and that was enough to push them to the top of this list.

Brooks and Yearwood, who wed in 2005, placed ahead of fellow country couples Tim McGraw and Faith Hill (they were third, with 61 million combined unites sold) and Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert (they placed ninth with 10 million in combined sales, which is impressive since Lambert’s first album ‘Kerosene’ came out in 2005, four years after Brooks stopped releasing records!)

But perhaps even more impressive is the fact that the Brooks and Yearwood ranked higher than Jay-Z and Beyonce, who landed in the No. 2 position with 62 million combined units sold. Those two rule the roost in the pop world, but they fall short of country’s powerhouse couple of Brooks and Yearwood by about 20 million units.